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| | Ten Mobile Technologies To Watch |
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Categorie: General News
Posted: 2002-10-14 by Gmtech
Views: 783
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Probably the most warmly received technology was Canesta's keyboard made of light. When you turn it on, it forms a keyboard that looks like the laser trip-wires out of spy movies -- but touching one of the laser-generated keys enters a character into a device.
Technology dreamers envision a day when almost everything -- video games, chat sessions, keyboards, even advertisements -- will get beamed through the air. DemoMobile is the playground for these dreamers. The annual Southern California conference, which ran Sept. 19-20, draws some of the smartest companies, and previews technology that could affect the way we live in the next five years.
I've picked my 10 favorite technologies from the show, the ones I think we are most likely to notice and enjoy in the next few years.
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Super Mario of Cell Phones
1. On-Field Live Football from Sorrent: Some of the ugliest games ever made, live on cell phones. Ever heard of Snake? You direct a snake toward a lump of food, hoping the snake reaches it before eating itself. Fun maybe, but not pretty.
Sorrent promises something better. A football game the company is launching with Fox Sports has good color on next-generation phones, features multiplayer action, and might be as much fun as Snake -- if the wireless carriers who will offer the game don't get too greedy. The single-player version is due in mid-October and the multiplayer version in mid-November.
From the looks of it, this could be the Super Mario Brothers of cell phone games, a type of game that opens up the floodgates, allowing people to have fun in new and unexpected ways.
The part that worries me is the pricing. Sorrent expects wireless carriers to charge $5 to download the game, a flat rate of $3 a month to access the online version, and on top of that, a per-minute charge to compete with other opponents wirelessly. This could prevent the main force that makes a video game a hit: addiction. If game addicts know they're paying by the minute for the fun, they're more likely to be cautious about how often they play.
A Pearl
2. Oyster from Tcom International: Put your laptop into this dock, and it operates like a desktop. This was the simplest product I saw at DemoMobile, and because of that, it carried a certain charm. The Oyster allows you to sit your laptop up vertically on the desk, with the keyboard and screen facing you. It feeds the power and peripheral cords into a well in the back. A wireless keyboard in the front allows you to use it the way you would a desktop computer.
There were a couple of problems with the Oyster, however. One, Tcom International was slippery about the pricing. The company said at the show it would cost between $150 and $200 and later sent out an e-mail retracting that. Either way, universal laptop docks are a great idea, and hopefully the Oyster, or something like it, will be on store shelves soon.
Reach Out and Grab Someone
3. SONbuddy from Green Packet: This software allows users to create a personal wireless network, to, say, take a laptop equipped with 802.11b and reach out and grab other 802.11b users who want to connect. It's also built to work with 802.11a and g, though those are not yet widely used.
The SON in SONbuddy stands for Self-Organizing Network. It bills itself as able to easily create a peer-to-peer wireless network using an instant messaging-like interface, allowing users would be able to swap files at a speedy 11 megabits per second. The company said it's working with a large university in Ohio to blend the technology into campus life.
Mobile Marketing You Like
4. SkyCode from SkyGo: It's mobile marketing, except the type you want to receive. The idea behind SkyCode is that you see a phone number on a billboard or TV commercial, dial it into your phone, and start getting deals.
For example, a Connecticut TV station used SkyCode to let users play a game, and enter to win a trip to the Tennis Hall of Fame. Companies could use the technology to deliver coupons, incentives, or loyalty rewards.
SkyGo isn't a new company; two years ago, it began a wireless study in Boulder, Colo., to determine whether people are willing to put up with business pitches on their phones. The conclusion: Absolutely, as long as the customer gets to pick the pitch, and doesn't have to work too hard to get a deal.
New Form of Torture?
5. Modtones Polyphonic Ringtones from Faith West: This company's technology makes it possible for cell phone tones to sound more like instruments. For those who love to change ringer melodies to suit their mood, this is great news. For those who are annoyed by the constant jingling of phones during presentations, church services and other events, this is a new form of torture.
There are real benefits to Faith West's efforts in ringer technology. The company is working on ways to let people record their own ringer tones, say, voices. It might even be possible in a year or so for one person to "push" a ring tone to someone else, perhaps "Hey, it's Jon. Answer the phone!"
It's not hard to see the dangerous scenarios such technology might allow. For now, it's cell phones that sound like synthesizers. The technology is already available on i-mode phones in Japan, and Faith West is working on incorporating the technology into phones over here.
Just Plain Clever
6. Mobile Music Engine from Shazam Entertainment: Hold a cell phone up to a tune, and a text message tells you the song title and artist. This technology is just plain clever, and it's locally grown. Two scientists at Stanford University invented the underlying technology.
If you've got old songs on tape that you want to find again, or if you keep missing the part where the DJ names your favorite new song on the radio, the service could help. It's already active with all of the major wireless carriers in the United Kingdom, where Shazam is based.
Dial 2580, and play 30 seconds of a song into the phone by holding it near the speaker of a radio or stereo, and the carrier sends you a text message with the name of the song and artist. The service typically costs 75 cents per call, and works with most every type of music you could buy in a store, except classical. The UK is the hottest music market in the world, so it was a good place to start. We'll see if the sometimes slow-moving carriers here in the United States will catch up.
Keyboard Made of Light
7. Keyboard Perception Chipset from Canesta: Probably the most warmly received technology at DemoMobile was Canesta's keyboard made of light. When you turn it on, it forms a keyboard that looks like the laser trip-wires out of spy movies -- except when you touch one of the laser-generated keys, instead of setting off an alarm, it enters a character into a device.
Canesta intends for the keyboard to be used with handheld computers and cell phones, mobile devices that are too small to incorporate full-size keyboards. Will this catch on? Hard to say. On the plus side, the technology would add only about $50 to the cost of a device, and many travelers are yearning for keyboards larger than cell phone buttons. On the minus side, time will tell how durable Canesta-equipped devices are, and whether customers will find the laser keyboard easy enough to use -- especially since there's no tactile feedback to tell you when you've touched a key.
Unpacking Databases
8. Zoominator from Geophoenix: While Canesta's keyboard of light seeks to solve the problem of getting data into small devices, Geophoenix hopes to help people get data out. The small screens on mobile devices can make information difficult to read, especially tightly packed databases.
The Geophoenix Zoominator allows Internet content providers to assemble their content is such a way that users will later be able to zoom in on portions, making it readable.
Geophoenix has an interesting mix of experience. The technology grew out of six years of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And earlier this year the company appointed Carl Yankowski, an MIT alumnus, executive chairman. Yankowski's best known locally for being the energetic CEO of Palm until a year ago.
Odd Thing About Microsoft
9. Microsoft Broadband Networking: It's an odd thing about Microsoft. On one hand, its software has lately become more overbearing as the company tries to get everyone to sign up for paid services. On the other, the company's hardware is often unobtrusive and easier to use than competitors. That's the case with Microsoft keyboards, mice, joysticks, and now networking equipment.
Microsoft's new line of 802.11b wireless networking gear is not only competitively priced, it appears to break new ground in ease of use. No longer must users retrieve complex information about a computer's network settings -- software does that. And once you set up one computer on a network, the software will help you burn a CD so that you can simply load the settings onto the other computers in the house.
The simplicity is reminiscent of what Apple Computer offers with its 802.11b Airport wireless gear, but Microsoft may have outdone Apple in ease of use, and certainly has in price. Microsoft says its wireless gear works with Macs, though the easy setup software does not.
A wireless base station is $160, and wireless cards for desktops and laptops are $85. A kit that includes a base station and one adapter, enough to connect two computers, is $230.
Next-Gen Tricks
10. FileMaker Mobile: This little-watched subsidiary of Apple Computer is doing some great things with the next-generation Internet, and showed off some tricks at DemoMobile that I'd seen a few weeks earlier during a visit to FileMaker's campus in Santa Clara, Calif.
During the visit, an engineer showed me what their new database software can do. From within FileMaker Pro 6, he called out over the Internet to Amazon.com's book database, which Amazon makes publicly available as an XML Web service. With the help of third-party software, FileMaker Pro 6 pulled in title, author and pricing data, and arranged it in usable database fields.
Next, the engineer took the database and synced it over to a Hewlett-Packard iPaq Pocket PC, running FileMaker Mobile 2. If we were in a bookstore, we could use the iPaq and a barcode reader to check inventory against the existing database.
The exciting thing about the combination of FileMaker Pro 6, FileMaker Mobile 2 and XML, is the potential for individuals or small businesses to carry and update complex databases, using the Internet.
FileMaker Pro 6 costs about $1,000; Mobile 2 is $50. FileMaker Pro works on Windows PCs and Macs, and Mobile works on Palms and Pocket PCs.
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